[16][17] Afifi al-Akiti, who comes from Malaysia, is trained as a theologian and philologist in both the Islamic and Western traditions: educated originally at the feet of the ulema of the Muslim world, he subsequently received a First Class degree in Scholastic philosophy and the History of science from the Queen's University Belfast, where he was awarded various scholarships to read for his Masters and Doctoral degrees at Oxford University.

Besides acquainting scholars with this body of source material, his three-volume study presents a critical edition of this corpus, t a manual on metaphysics and natural philosophy called the Major Madnun.

[19][20] On 23 July 2005, just days after the London bombings, Afifi al-Akiti wrote Defending the Transgressed by Censuring the Reckless against the Killing of Civilians (Arabic: Mudafi' al-Mazlum bi-Radd al-Muhamil 'ala Qital Man La Yuqatil), the foreword of which was described by Gibril Haddad as a "fatwa" or a "response by a qualified Muslim scholar against the killing of civilians".

[24] The leader of al-Muhajiroun, Omar Bakri Muhammad, argues that the British government broke a "covenant of security" with its Muslim citizens by introducing anti-terror legislation and indefinite detention of terror suspects.

A year later the Defending the Transgressed appeared (as second edition) in The State We Are In [27] – a collection containing contributions on the same topic by other notable Muslim scholars, including the likes of Hamza Yusuf and Abdallah Bin Bayyah.